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Morningstar has announced plans to create a global hedge fund and private partnership database.

WASHINGTON- Excessive fees and inadequate disclosure represent far more serious threats to mutual fund shareholders than the trading abuses uncovered in recent months and will require more stringent legislation to remedy them. And it's time to take the bull by the horns.

The SEC-type regulator in Great Britain will publicly announce whether its mutual fund companies partook in U.S.-style market timing, Dow Jones Newswires reports.

As rumors circulate about a potential $300 million settlement between MFS Investments and regulators, the beleaguered fund firm may be dealt another blow as the SEC is considering punishing two of its top officials for failing to supervise activities, Reuters reports.

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has convened a grand jury to investigate the $600,000 in profits that Richard Strong, one of Fortune magazine’s 400 richest people in America, made, The New York Times reports.

Vanguard is facing problems of its own, as an employee has complained to regulators about the firm’s inability to service shareholder accounts efficiently, according to the editor of the newsletter The Independent Adviser for Vanguard Investors.

NEW YORK ¾ Emphasizing the increased role of state attorney generals in criminal enforcement, Eliot Spitzer distinguished between recent financial services industry scandals to a packed criminal justice section of the New York State Bar Association lawyers last Thursday.

A Morningstar analyst has a clever take on that old reliable treat bearer, the Girl Scout cookie seller and her relationship to mutual funds.

At a time in which President George W. Bush is facing firm attacks from Democrats seeking to take his job next November, the criticism has trickled down to the financial services industry, namely Principal Financial Group, the nation’s largest (401)k firm.

The million-dollar question of how much Putnam Investments paid to the SEC and other regulators in its settlement was answered yesterday – and it turned out to be a $24 million question.

The SEC and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer are on the precipice of charging Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce with allocating $1 billion for improper traders, sources told Reuters.

Bank of America announced in an internal memo yesterday that Keith Winn, the president of Bank of America Capital Management, has been named the investment product development and management executive for the organization expected to emerge from the BoA-FleetBoston merger.

MFS CEO John Ballen has hired a leading securities fraud lawyer and has met with the funds’ board, Reuters reports.

WASHINGTON – Testifying before the financial management subcommittee of the Senate’s Governmental Affairs Committee, intrepid New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer vehemently defended his $600 million settlement with Alliance and the anticipated $300 million-$350 million settlement pending with MFS.

Putnam Investments Tuesday announced a host of initiatives to improve fund transparency and lower costs – which today’s Wall Street Journal estimates will reduce fees by some $35 million.

Morningstar has announced plans to create a global hedge fund and private partnership database.

AdvisorCentral, a portal for advisers and broker/dealers, has announced a partnership to create a platform with Savingforcollege.com, an online education tool for college savers.

Although it will not hold Japanese equities, a new fund launched by Legg Mason Investments will try and tap into a perceived demand for the Southeast Asian markets, the company announced.

As the Securities and Exchange Commission grapples with the question of how much transparency is needed in hedge funds, the industry nearly reached the $750 billion mark worldwide, Reuters reports.

The ability to conduct innovative research, which is often the selling point for independent mutual fund firms, would be squashed if the Investment Company Institute’s proposal to curb soft dollars is ratified, an executive from Mellon Financial subsidiary Dreyfus Corp. told The Wall Street Journal.